Hi!
Wow, what a great post. I may be a little late but I hope my comment doesn’t get lost in the sea of great contributions here.
I find the studies on gender-characteristic behaviour on primates really interesting. A question rose, though. You talk about the existence of a sexual bias, but what about discrimination toward individuals that exhibit homosexual behaviour? Not exactly a gender question, but it popped on my head while reading this.
About the gender dissociation, I agree on the fact that it’s influenced by the three factors; biology, psychology and society. Now, biology and psychology are somewhat internal factors, but society exerts an influence from the outside, doesn’t it? At which point can we know whether the behaviour is biological/psychological and when social? My concern is, if a child as young as Camille exhibits gender behaviour opposite to their biological one, how to know when it’s a social influence or a biological/psychological one, and how to avoid confusing the child? Also, if one makes a ‘mistake’ by approaching a child’s GID behaviour a certain way (either reinforcing or trying to change the behavior) does this count as a social influence? And if it does, is it reversible? Or can such an influence change the individual’s gender identity permanently?
I don’t know if any of my questions make sense or if this is the right place to put them, but your post really made me think, and I love it for that.
Hello @isa93 :)
Thank you for commenting. I see you brought me a lot of questions :D So, I made a cup of tea, turned my music on and here I am 😊 Let's see if I can reply to you in a satisfactory way!
In the studies cited in this post there were no observations of members presenting homosexual behaviour; therefore, not notes were taken about how others reacted to it. But, without any specific study to back me up on this, I would dare to say that this could be manifested in the form of violence or even exclusion against the member who is not fulfilling their group identity part.
Absolutely :)
This is the big question! For example, a similar study - MRI exam - was conducted in adult transgenders, and indeed the brain of an adult male who transitioned to become a woman, was more similar (in functionality) to that of a heterosexual woman than that of a man. But, then now ... how to find out whether they were born like that, of if that the brain's network adapted to the social environment in which they developed; in turn giving rise to female's psychological aspects? The fact that we are such complex creatures living in such complex societies makes just really impossible to disentangle the three aspects - social, biological and psychological (and this is the answer to your question!). This is why, like I said in the article, studying non-human animals becomes handy!
However the approach - reinforcing or preventing - will be an environmental influence. The tricky part here is drawing the line between the child's needs and what is imposed on them. I suppose, this is down to how well the parents know their child and how unbiased they can be in their judgement.
Most psychological states are reversible indeed; let's say another child with a similar case of that to Camille's goes through the same I am a girl phase, but the parents just let him be. Do you want a doll? Here is a doll! But without getting the whole 'you are going to be a girl' mindset around the child. In this case puberty will tell, and it might take the child either way. However, in the case of Camille, I find very difficult that she will feel like a boy in her puberty years, her entire environment is wiring her brain networks to work as that of a girl from a really early age. She is growing up to be a girl. But this won't really matter if Camille grows up to enjoy a life of high-levels of subjective well-being and emotional stability :)
I hope this has helped to clarify some of your doubts, at least a little!
All the best to you & thank you for thinking thing through so carefully. It really makes the work I put into my posts worthwhile!
What a cool setting to give answers! Although I'm more of a hot chocolate person.
Oh ok, I get it now. It makes sense. Although, it would be cool wouldn't it? to have some sort of machine scanning a person and spitting out values regarding this. Something like 'yeah, your sexual behaviour is 60% biological, 25% psychological and 15% social, now have a nice life'.
This is an awesome thought. In a way it's 'common knowledge' but at the same time it's a total eye-opener. It feels so true not only applied to an individual's sexual behaviour but about pretty much any decision a person makes regarding their life; hobbies, careers, likes and dislikes...
All this has stirred my curiosity! Regarding 'behaviour' as a whole concept, not only human, but animal. I'll dig up a little more into this :)
Thank you so much for such a complete and dedicated answer. This too, for me at least, makes time in steemit really worth it. My doubts have been totally resolved.
Thanks again and all my best to you too!